Instagram's Newest Update Will Have You Obsessing Over More Than Just Likes

It's all about views now.

Today’s a big day for Instagram news – in case you missed it, Clarendon is officially the world’s most popular filter, and now, TechCrunch reports that the platform will be rolling out a new way to track your followers’ engagement. Starting next week, you’ll be able to see your videos’ view counts in comparison to your number of likes. Now we can obsess over the number of people who watched our videos, but didn’t “like” them.

Instagram is the latest to jump on the view-count bandwagon — Vine, Youtube, Snapchat, and Facebook already let you see how many people are enjoying your videos, so it was only a matter of time before Instagram did too. According to TechCrunch, video watch time on the platform has increased by 40% over the past six months. This is in part thanks to content wizards like Zach King and the new “Compilations” feature, which lets you easily scroll through footage from events like the Golden Globes and the Super Bowl. And like the Super Bowl, which – let’s be real – is half about the commercials, Instagram is becoming more ad-friendly.

Last week, the platform changed its video time limits from from 30 seconds to 60 seconds for brands. This means that companies like T-Mobile and Time Warner can now air their TV commercials on the platform. Both the longer time limit and the ability to track views mark a step towards Instagram’s new year’s resolution to make itself a better video platform. The view counter and increased time limits are the first of the major video updates to come in 2016, and we can’t wait to see what’s next.